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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29922516">Tangerine Kiss</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomlinsoul/pseuds/spencers-renaissance'>spencers-renaissance (tomlinsoul)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bad Things Happen [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Criminal Minds (US TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Comforting Emily, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hurt Penelope Garcia, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Sad Penelope Garcia, Sunrises</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:14:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,392</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29922516</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomlinsoul/pseuds/spencers-renaissance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Emily wakes up to Penelope missing from their bedroom and knows it's one of those nights where her grief is weighing her down. Luckily, she knows just the thing to help.</p><p>or; Penelope's grieving, and Emily is the best girlfriend ever.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Penelope Garcia/Emily Prentiss</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bad Things Happen [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2198538</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Tangerine Kiss</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title from the poem "Rise" by Brianna Schenkelberg.</p><p>This fic fills the "I Should Have Been Better" square in my Bad Things Happen bingo card. </p><p>Enjoy some sweet Penemily h/c &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s the middle of the night when Emily wakes up to Penelope’s side of the bed empty. The mattress is cold, the duvet thrown haphazardly aside, and their apartment is quiet. She knows logically what’s probably going on, but she can’t help that her mind immediately jumps to the worst-case scenario and she goes from fast asleep to wide awake in record time as she throws her covers aside to look for her girlfriend.</p><p>The light isn’t on in their ensuite, so she ventures into the living room and is equal parts relieved and sad to see Penelope curled up in a tight ball on the sofa, staring vacantly at the wall opposite her. Emily pauses in the doorway for a moment as her heart clenches tightly. She’ll never get used to seeing her bright and sunny girlfriend like this.</p><p>“Penny?” she says softly as she walks over to crouch in front of her. Tears are running down her face but she doesn’t make any effort to wipe her face, just blinking tiredly as she silently cries. </p><p>Penelope doesn’t react to her voice, not that she expected her to, so Emily stands up again and turns on a couple of low-light lamps around the room, bathing their cosy lounge in a warm glow much nicer than the moonlit darkness of seconds ago. It’s a little chilly inside despite DC fast approaching another scorching summer, so she grabs a blanket and drapes it gently across Penelope as well as she can before trying to get her attention again. </p><p>“Baby?” she murmurs, laying a hand on her cheek, using the pad of her nail-bitten thumb to catch a falling tear. She leans in and presses a gentle kiss to her forehead, finally getting her attention. </p><p>When Penelope gets like this, her self-loathing is so strong she finds it difficult to talk or make eye contact, but at least now she knows Emily’s here. </p><p>“You gonna make room for me up there?” she asks as light-heartedly as she possibly can, shifting her upright a little so Emily can sit in the corner, letting Penelope lean against her chest instead of the sofa arm. As soon as they’re settled she presses a gentle kiss to her plaited hair, relishing the feeling of Penelope’s body against hers. Even when the going gets tough like this, on days when Penelope loses herself and needs Emily’s help to recentre herself, there’s nowhere else she’d rather be.</p><p>She doesn’t know how long they sit like that, quietly enjoying each other’s company, but by the time Penelope finally feels able to speak, her arm has gone to sleep and she can see the beginnings of dawn through the glass panes of their bay window. </p><p>“It was my fault,” she whispers. </p><p>Emily knows what she’s talking about, of course. The only time Penelope ever talks about her parents’ death is after a catatonic episode, curled in a protective ball on the sofa, and she finds her like this a good few times a year. The first time damn near scared her to death. </p><p>“No,” Emily denies, knowing how little effect her words will have and saying them anyway, “it wasn’t. You were a teenager.”</p><p>“Teenagers can be at fault.” She reaches up to finally wipe her teary face with the sleeve of her pyjama top. </p><p>“It was no-one’s fault but that drunk driver.” She holds her a little tighter, pressing another kiss to her blonde hair. “The events that led to them being on the road is irrelevant. Is it a child’s fault if their parents are hit by a drunk driver on the way home from a school play or picking them up from a sleepover?”</p><p>“That’s different,” Penelope mumbles.</p><p>Emily sighs, tracing patterns on Penelope’s hand with her index finger. “Baby, I know for a fact that if your parents knew you still held so much guilt over this, if they knew you spent so much of your life blaming yourself for their death, they’d be heartbroken.” </p><p>“I should have been a better daughter,” she says, like she didn’t even hear Emily. Saying the words out loud immediately has her breaking down into sobs, curling herself tightly around Emily’s frame as she cries desperately into her neck.</p><p>Emily’s stomach clenches and her heart aches as she holds her sobbing girlfriend as close as humanly possible, knowing there’s nothing she can do to stop the pain she’s feeling. “I love you so much,” she whispers into Penelope’s ear as she cries. “You’re so incredible. You’ve done so much with your life, your parents would be so proud of you. You counsel families of victims in your free time, you donate generously to every organisation even remotely connected to your own situation, you’re an incredible big sister to your brothers. You’re amazing, Penelope, I just wish you could see it.”</p><p>She feels herself tear up as Penelope continues to sob. She can hear the helplessness, the defeat, the exhausted misery in every sound she makes and it’s ripping her in two to know she can’t do a single thing to help. </p><p>“Oh, Penny,” she breathes. “I love you. You’re okay. I’m here.”</p><p>Eventually, her tears dry up and Emily knows it’s time for the next phase of their routine for Penelope’s bad nights. “I’m going to make you some hot chocolate,” she says as Penelope pulls away and sits upright properly, “you go and get your shoes on. I won’t be long.”</p><p>As soon as they’re ready, they head down to the garage and climb into Emily’s car. Penelope curls up in the passenger seat and sips hot chocolate from her thermos, made exactly how she likes it. Once they’re on the main streets of DC, Emily reaches a hand over the console and grips Penelope’s, interlocking their fingers. It feels just as perfect and just as natural as it did the very first time she wrapped Penelope’s hand in hers. </p><p>They arrive at the Tidal Basin only twenty minutes before the sun is set to rise, and they walk over to their favourite bench near the MLK memorial slowly, enjoying the crisp early morning air. Cherry blossom season is coming to an end so it’s quieter than it has been over the last few weeks, leaving them in the quiet solitude of their comfortable togetherness. </p><p>Emily lifts her arm for Penelope to duck under, resting her head on her shoulder, and for the next hour, they watch the sun rise slowly over the city as it slowly starts to come alive again. </p><p>“I wish my parents lived long enough for them to see me get this job,” Penelope says as the sun bathes the water in beautiful, radiant colours. “I wish they could’ve seen the sunrise here.”</p><p>“I know, baby,” Emily whispers. It had been tradition for Penelope and her family to watch the sunrise over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco whenever anything big happened in their lives, and as soon as her girlfriend had told her that, she’d driven them to the Tidal Basin to watch the sunrise together as a memorial of sorts for her parents. “I wish I could’ve met them.”</p><p>“They would’ve loved you,” she chuckles, her grief still evident in every syllable, but greatly soothed by the tangerine kiss of their new tradition. “My mom especially. She’d think you were hilarious.”</p><p>“I am hilarious,” Emily laughs indignantly. </p><p>“You and Mom are the only people who would think that,” she teases, and Emily revels at the sound of joy in her voice.</p><p>“Derek thinks I’m funny.”</p><p>“Derek can’t be trusted,” Penelope points out, “you know that.” </p><p>“I love you, Penny,” she says again as their laughter dies down and they settle into a silence decidedly relieved of the anxious, grief-ridden tension of earlier. </p><p>“I know. I love you, too. You’re the only person I love more than Derek Morgan.”</p><p>“Mmm, that’s a lot,” Emily says drily. </p><p>Penelope leans up and presses a kiss to Emily’s cheek. “Thank you,” she whispers. “I can’t believe I got so lucky.”</p><p>“I’m the lucky one,” Emily argues, and as they squabble over who loves who more and who got luckier with the sun rising across from them, she decides that when she finally proposes to Penelope Garcia, this exact spot is top of the list. </p><p>What an inviting thought.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Kudos and comments are always appreciated and make me very happy, but honestly just so glad you're here!</p><p>Here is the <a href="https://spencers-renaissance.tumblr.com/post/646384416234586112/tangerine-kiss">rebloggable post</a>. Anybody can request fics on my tumblr, <a href="https://spencers-renaissance.tumblr.com">@spencers-renaissance</a>, or in the comments! Come say hi :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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